Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive New Home for Decades of Award-Winning TV Commercials, Dozens Now Streamable Online

Thanks to the recent acquisition of a complete and well-documented archive, the Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive is the new home for tens of thousands of television commercials competing for the former Clio Awards in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

Organized by category and year, the submissions on 16 mm and 35 mm film had been stored in a New York City warehouse since 1992, when the archive was purchased from the Clio organization by London International Advertising Awards. The organization recently began seeking a new home for the collection, and turned to IU’s Moving Image Archive based on its international reputation for archival storage, digitization and preservation expertise.

Now, what is believed to be the largest collection of historic, award-winning television commercials in existence will live permanently on the IU Bloomington campus.

“We are still examining and cataloging the collection and will be for years, but our initial estimate is that we have at least 80,000 commercials from around the world,” said Rachael Stoeltje, director of the IU Libraries Moving Image Archive. “Maybe even as many as 100,000 or more.”

The thousands of film reels contain television commercials from 85 countries. Although international submissions weren’t accepted until 1975, U.S. commercials are dated from 1959 through 1991. The former Clio Archive, purchased by London International Awards in 1992, contains every entry into the contest during those decades.

First awarded in 1960, and still a respected distinction today, the Clio is an international annual award established to recognize excellence in creative businesses such as advertising and design. Among many awards in the industry, the prestigious Clio is often viewed as the “Oscars of advertising.”

Gary Price (gprice@mediasourceinc.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. Before launching INFOdocket, Price and Shirl Kennedy were the founders and senior editors at ResourceShelf and DocuTicker for 10 years. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com, and is currently a contributing editor at Search Engine Land.